Liverpool: "Probably the Best City in the World"... (the preferred slogan for t-shirts, mugs, and stickers everywhere)

This weekend I was planning on going to Chester, England- a town about an hour from Preston- with the International Students Society, but the trip was cancelled at the last minute. The rest of our international group had planned a trip to Scotland for Saturday and Sunday, so my friends Toni and Susan and I were left to fend for ourselves. We decided to take a day trip to Liverpool and see the roots of the Beatles and whatever else we could find.

 

We got our student rail passes Saturday morning (we can get some discounts now on train tickets) and boarded the first train out of Preston. We got off at the Liverpool Lime Street station and wandered our way down to Albert Dock, a highlight for tourists with museums, restaurants, the ocean, and shops. I wanted to see the Tate art museum there and Toni and Susan were hyped about The Beatles Story museum. 

We grabbed some lunch and headed over to learn about the Beatles. We listened to an audio tour as we passed through rooms designed to make you think you were in The Cavern or the Mersey Beat office, etc. It was surprisingly really fun and interesting seeing how the group formed, how their image changed with a new manager, and how the mania spread throughout the world. 

After resting for a bit, we headed across the dock to the Tate, which was...free! There was an extensive, three-story exhibit that chronicled art throughout the twentieth century. It was organized by theme instead of just by year so you could see how images, colors, textures, and styles evolved. I loved seeing the Cindy Sherman photographs "in real life" and I think my favorite painting was Seventeen Lines by Kenneth Martin. 

I got a kick out of the fourth floor exhibit, too: they asked people from Liverpool to make proposals of things they would do in to improve their city, then typed them up and framed them around the first part of the space. They are now trying to do all the proposed ideas in and outside of the museum. For example: I propose to have a children's choir sing Christmas tunes on the first floor of the Tate (and then there was a video on display of the kids singing)...or I propose to sprinkle endangered wildflower seeds out of the window on the train from Manchester to Liverpool (and then there was a picture of him doing it). I can relate to having those little ideas that you just want to do-I liked that they wrote them all down and are making them a reality...inspiring!

We called a taxi after Toni's umbrella flipped out in the gale-force winds and rain as we left the museum (don't worry- I had my beautiful bubble umbrella that gave us a little tent to camp out in as we waited) and rode back to the train station. Our first independent trip...a success!